Your Spectrum 18 - Frontlines & Hacking Away

Your Spectrum
Issue 18, September 1985 - Frontlines & Hacking Away

GREAT GOONIES	.
American software giant, DataSoft is entering the Speccy market with the release of two major titles that are due to appear in September on the US Gold label. The Goonies game - software for numbskulls? How does The Goonies grab you? It's an arcade/strategy game based on Steven Spielberg's new movie of the same name. This spin- off from the celluloid craze has eight screens of Rube Goldberg-type mazes (Rube who? Ed) and a set of multiple characters. The idea is to get your pinkies on the pirate's treasure before Mama Fratelli gets there first. Mama mia! *The Mark of Zorro* - zzzzzzzzz!** The second piece of software is a real swashbuckler called Zorro! It's a platform game that aims to capture the cut'n'thrust of the Douglas Fairbanks movie. Your task is to rescue the fair maiden from fifteen screens of increasing difficulty. It all sounds mucho macho but you'll have to wait to see if it hits the mark (of Zorro) or will just have you pushing out the Zs. Both games will sell for £7.95 and if you want any more info, you'll have to talk to the movie moguls at US Gold on nnn-nnn nnnn.	Isn't that ... ? No, it can't be ... It is, you know! Now appearing regularly alongside the rarely-dressed Jane, here is Uncle Clive summarising the 'O' level Computer Studies syllabus in two frames of The Mirror's cartoon strip (sic). If this is really all he knows about the subject, it's hardly surprising that the Daily Maxwell has stepped in!
	SPORTS WEAR 'N' TEAR	WHO BEARS WINS
	So, you thought you'd seen everything, eh? Well, how about a ten quid peripheral that you can only use with one game, Hypersports? That's right, Konami Ltd has just launched an add-on designed specifically for use with sports sims, like the recently released Hypersports - though it's unlikely that Daley Thompson would be offended if you used it on him! The unit's based around the controls on the original arcade game with buttons for the running actions that cut out those shaft-straining, wrist-aching joystick sessions. At £9.95, it'll set you back more than the game but you'll get a commendation from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Joysticks. You can talk to the people with their fingers on the button by ringing Konami on nn-nnn nnnn.	It's Rupert, Rupert the Bear ... Quicksilva has taken the tartan terror and turned his adventures into a slice of arcade action. It's a sort Rupert meets the Commie 64, I thought he was meant to be at the Toymaker's Party! of soft bear into software - prepare to grin and bear it! The bare essentials of the game are that you control Rupert as he careers round a castle collecting objects. But there are plenty of meanie toys with the bare-faced cheek to make Rupert take a tumble. If you can't bear any more of this and all you want are the bare facts, get on the hotline to Quicksilva on nn-nnn nnnn. Someone there should bare all.

P a p e r d a t a
MOON GIVER	PORSCHABILITY
Once in a blue moon, a game comes out that promises a little bit of magic. Level 9's new adventure, Red Moon is one such game. You'll enter a mythical world of beasties and hidden treasure with over two hundred *Will you be crooning under the Red Moon?* locations to explore. The transportation fee for beaming up to this new moon is £6.95 of your earth pounds - but even better news is that you can win a copy and four other Level 9 games by entering our Ghostwriting Competition! Follow the clues on page 46 for the full info. But if you can't wait for the moonlight flit, phone up Level 9 on (nnnn) nnnnn and get them to level with you - they may even throw in a few clues of their own for free.	How are you doing on Gyron? Are you any nearer to winning that elusive Porsche 924? Well, the good news is that the game can definitely be completed. The bad news if you were hoping to be the first, is that someone's beaten you to it - bad news for everyone bar Simon Thomason, that is, 'cos he's the one who's finished it. But the compo's not over yet, so perhaps you can pick up some tips. It took him 78 hours over a two week period and then he only did it because of a bug left in the game right at the end. So, is he thoroughly sick to death of it by now? "No, I think it's reasonably good - I like the graphics though it could have done with a bit more sound." And has he any tips for his prospective challengers at the play-off in November? "Stick with it, even if it does get tedious. Shoot as many things as possible and beware of inverted towers - they're deadly. Also, there's no way you can come close if you don't map it out." So, what made Simon stick with it? "The money, of course! Well, it's not the car - I'm only sixteen!"
The Spectrum Shadow ROM Disassembly Melbourne House £8.95 Here it is at last, a long- awaited literary offering from Melbourne House! The Interface 1 may have been around for months, but this is spankin' new! The book takes you straight into the single most important concept you'll have to grasp about the Shadow ROM - hook codes. As you'll see from Andy Pennell's article on the subject in this issue [see New ROM Antics], there are three versions of the Interface 1 ROM. One of the ways of getting round the problem this causes is using hook codes, as they re-direct routines to the right place irrespective of which version of the ROM you have. You all know by now that with Interface 1 attached to your Speccy, adding extra commands in Basic is a fairly simple matter. Not nearly so many people seem to know how to add them or just how much power they can pump into a Speccy. This is where the book comes in. Not only does it explain how to add commands, but it also gives some mighty impressive examples. For starters, there's a double POKE command which allows you to POKE in a sixteen bit number all in one go. Next, we have a string POKE command which POKEs a whole string of characters into memory at a given address. There's an improved Beep command and a whole suite of commands to deal with the microdrives, and the RS232 serial port. To get down to business, about a fifth of the way through the book, the actual disassembly begins. This part of the book follows the format of its forerunner, The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly. Both books have a section on each page on ROM Disassembly, split into separate routines, and documented right down to which input parameter are required in the registers and how the routine can be used. At first sight, both books seem pretty similar but one slight difference is worth noting. Basically, the annotation in this book is much easier to understand so you'll pick up a whole lot more from it. Reading the routine descriptions certainly taught me a lot about the workings of microdrives, the network and the RS232. One gem of information brought to light is that the shadow ROM contains a handful of routines that it never actually uses but which have obviously been left off ever since the ROM was written. These routines are only for printing hex numbers and examining memory, but many programmers may find them valuable time savers. The book ends on a rather impressive note, with a section of appendices summarizing everything from the Shadow ROM system variables to the workings of the microdrive and RS232. There's even a section on hacking around with the Shadow ROM yourself. I can safely say, that this book goes way beyond my original expectations and it's a darn good buy too at £8.95.

HACKING AWAY
*Are you into POKEing fun? Then send your hacking hints to Andy Pennell, Your Spectrum, 14 Rathbone Place, London W1P 1DE.*

Hi to all you hackers out there! Hope you're ready for this month's hack attack as I'm plunging you straight Into the depths of Manic Miner! If you're always gasping for air, then young Yan has come to the rescue with his life saving POKES for infinite air in both versions of the game. You can get the Bug-Byte air supply with:
34795,195: 34796,241: 34797,135: 36233,195: 36234,149: 36235,141.
Software Projects air can be got with:
34801,195: 34802,247: 34803,135: 36244,195: 36245,160: 36246,141.
You can breathe again now!
Beware the oil refinery too! You may have to dig yourself out of a few problems with the two stationary sprites there.
I always like to defend my POKEs, but David Thompson has caught me out with one for Defenda in YS issue 12. It should've been 37530,52. If you think you can defend yourself, then try David's POKE for speeding up the rate of alien attacks. It's 37283,0.
For those of you that want to live for ever in Project Future, Jani Meri says POKE 27662,2 will give you that infinite privilege.
Martin Cleaver has the direct command to get infinite lives on Ad Astra. Just type in:
LOAD "" CODE: LOAD "" CODE: LOAD "" CODE: POKE 35853,0: RANDOMIZE USR 33000
If you've been Soft-Aiding recently, you may be hankering for endless lives on Jack and the Beanstalk. Kev Panton has sent in the POKE for that. Try typing in this one:
POKE 56115,0: 56116,0: 56388,62: 56389,27: 56390,0.
If you're a real Road Racer, like Martin Barrio try his speedy tip for infinite lives on this game. POKE 27150,0. (The program Is unprotected, hence the hasty hacking.)

Now for the craftier hackers among you, here's a tricky tip to get you infinite lives on Invasion Of The Body Snatchas, thanks to the "Led Zepplin freak". You start by:
CLEAR 32767: MERGE "": POKE 23787,201: PRINT USR 23776: NEW
Next, enter this lot, and you'll be there!
CLEAR 32767: MERGE "": POKE 23787,201: PRINT USR 23776: NEW
10 POKE 61724,48: POKE 61725,242
20 FOR I=62000 TO 62025
30 READ A: POkE I,A: NEXT I
40 DATA 33, 57, 242, 34, 12, 91, 195, 0, 91, 62
50 DATA X, 50, 150, 159, 62, 24, 50, 246, 170
60 DATA 175, 50, 242, 170, 195, 0, 158
35 PRINT USR 61440
Replace X In line 50 with the number of lives you want, up to as many as 255. "Can the headbangers in the Hack Free Zone get 50,000 on it without cheating?" is our hairy- hacker's question!
Have any of you cracked Chuckie Egg II yet? Dave Leander has smashed into this one for us. It's tricky to load, so first key in this:
10 FOR A=23296 TO 23309: READ Z: POKE A,Z: NEXT A
20 DATA 55, 62, 255, 221, 33, 0, 64, 17, 0, 192, 205, 86, 5, 201
Position the tape past the loader, and past the header on the main section, then do RAND USR 23296 and play the tape. When it has loaded do POKE 35453,0: RANDOMIZE USR 24770 and hey presto!
Now for a bit of Astro Blasting. Graham Robinson has made an explosive discovery on Astro Blaster. To get into it, load the game as normal, play it and get a high score. When it's finished asking you to put your name in, press T and you'll drop into Basic. Then do POKE 27422,0 for endless lives, or 26396 for a suitable number of lives. Next, do GOTO 30 to save a new copy, or GOTO 40 for a new game.
J Eagleson wants to get down to basics, or rather return to Basic in the middle of games. He had the right idea by doing an EI, then a RST 8, but there are two hitches this way. First off, ERR_SP may be set up for a crash, and secondly Basic may no longer be accessible at this stage. JSW (the game you had in mind) falls into the latter category as it uses the low 16K of RAM for Scratchpad and that destroys the whole Basic area, as well as its system variables.
Finally, a few moans and groans. Apparently some of you had problems with the Pyjamarama POKEs in YS 14. Has any one got any clues?
Last but not least, I have a request for a POKE for infinite lives on Jumping Jack. I'm sure that someone will spring the answer on me soon!
Happy hacking until next month.

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